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FEATURED ARTICLES ABOUT NBC - PAGE 4

Jimmy Kimmel made Jay Leno squirm a couple of weeks ago. Leno's discomfort was probably mild compared to the Maalox moments Kimmel triggered among NBC's top brass. During their crossover visits to each other's late-night shows, Kimmel broke from frivolous chit-chat to pose a question Leno clearly didn't expect or welcome. What are you going to do next year, Kimmel wanted to know? This has to be a sore subject with Leno ever since NBC announced Conan O'Brien would take over The Tonight Show in 2009.

Add David Letterman's name to the roster of TV insiders who think NBC has lost its mind in replacing Jay Leno with Conan O'Brien next year. Letterman is quoted in the new edition of Rolling Stone as saying, "Unless I'm misunderstanding something, I don't know why, after the job Jay has done for them, why they would relinquish that." The Tonight Show transition seems "so preposterous" that Letterman had difficulty believing it is actually going to happen. "I'm not quite sure why they would do that, so much so that one wonders if that's actually going to happen."

MIAMI -- NBC refuses to drag the day on forever. Super Bowl kickoff is 5:15 p.m., one thankful hour earlier than the past two years. "We want to get the game started," said Michael Weisman, NBC Sports executive producer. "It`s a long day as it is, and viewers have turned off certain games when they became routs in the fourth quarter." NBC was stuck with the biggest rout in Super Bowl history three years ago in New Orleans. The Chicago Bears buried the New England Patriots 46-10, but viewers stayed with the telecast, making it the most-watched program in TV history.

As the Olympics turn the corner and head for the finish line, the Athens Games have a comfortable lead on the Sydney Games. Through 10 days, NBC has attracted 185 million total, unduplicated viewers, equal to 67 percent of the U.S. population and 9 percent more than Sydney's 169 million viewers through the same period. Ninety-five million people watched part of the Games on the networks of NBC Sunday, making it the most-watched day of the Athens Olympics. NBC's 10-day prime-time broadcast average stands at a 15.8 national rating/28 share, up 7 percent from Sydney's 14.7/26.

NBC is en route to its third straight triumph in the network ratings race. Nielsen supremacy, however, is insignificant compared to a more important form of leadership NBC is exhibiting. It is the only broadcast network to stand firm against congressional coercion to adopt the latest program-content ratings system - V for violence, S for sex, D for suggestive dialogue and L for racy language - which officially went into effect Oct. 1. It's difficult to marshal an argument against providing parents with information on what their children might be watching (unless you're Ellen DeGeneres, who is irked by ABC's "parental discretion" advisory for her show)

NBC got Al Michaels. ESPN got Ryder Cup cable rights, expanded Olympics highlights and Oswald The Lucky Rabbit. After a bizarre broadcasting swap, the two networks have their NFL prime-time lineups set, and Walt Disney can look down and smile now that his beloved rabbit is back with the company, which also owns ESPN. An animation history lesson: In 1927, Disney produced 26 Oswald silent cartoons. They were distributed by Universal (an NBC partner), which owned all the rights to the character.

As if the first game of the Bulls-Knicks Eastern Conference finals wasn`t enough to get basketball fans to tune in NBC on Sunday (Chs. 4 and 5, 3:30 p.m.), the network is giving them another reason. The NBA draft lottery, quite possibly the most entertaining eight to nine minutes of sports television one can find, will be aired Sunday at halftime of the Bulls-Knicks game. The excitement isn`t as palpable as last year when the prize to the lottery winner was Louisiana State`s Shaquille O`Neal, but there is enough talent among the three or four top players to warrant the attention of most basketball fans.

Kerry Sanders is the latest Miami-Fort Lauderdale TV correspondent to reap the benefits of working for a network-owned station. The reporter for NBC-owned WTVJ-Ch. 6 has been plucked from the local station for a job with NBC News. "It all came together pretty fast," the 35-year-old Sanders said. The catalyst was Sanders' coverage of the shooting down of the Brothers to the Rescue planes last month. The network asked its local station for help with the story, which was being covered by Sanders.

So there was Brian Williams, NBC News' Chief White House Correspondent, out in Billings, Mont., last June with the rest of the presidential press corps. Taking a break from shadowing Clinton, he and several other reporters slipped away on a boot-buying mission. It was to be the first pair for Williams, who as he tells this story is wearing tassel loafers. "But I knew that the person to call for guidance was veteran boot-wearer Tom Brokaw. Tom talked me through what to look for in a good starter pair of boots, and told me what to expect to pay."

NBC announced earlier this week that The Highwayman, a new, action-oriented series, will debut at 8 p.m. on Friday next year, preceding Miami Vice. NBC Entertainment President Brandon Tartikoff said that The Highwayman, which involves an undercover agent who travels the country in a high-tech truck, will provide a better lead-in for Miami Vice than the current Rags to Riches. If Miami Vice does not respond favorably in the Nielsen ratings, Tartikoff said he would return the show to the 10 p.m. slot.